by A. Giannetti
Tullius stood in the doorway and watched Elerian walk across the clearing to the gate leading through the rowan trees. “He startled me with that question about shape changing,” he thought to himself, “but fortunately, he still does not suspect that he is not what he appears to be. Let him be happy a little longer then. I will not be the one to tell him if I can help it, for I feel the knowledge that he is not human will bring him only grief in the end.” Putting aside his somber thoughts, Tullius suddenly wondered, “What was the source of his interest in shape changing then, I wonder? I hope the young rascal is not planning some new mischief at my expense. I shall have to be especially watchful,” he thought to himself as he closed his door after Elerian disappeared through the gate.
THE SHAPE CHANGER
When Elerian woke the next morning, his first thoughts were of the new spell Tullius had taught him. Like a dog worrying a bone, his mind turned it over and over, seeking the key which would make it complete.
After breakfasting and helping Balbus with the morning chores, Elerian slipped off to a quiet place in the forest on the slopes below the farm. Slipping off his sandals, he climbed thirty feet into a large oak tree by grasping the ridges in its fissured bark with his strong fingers and pulling himself up. He climbed onto a great branch, thick as a young tree, which grew straight out from the trunk and sat on it with his back resting against the tree. As Elerian listened to the bird calls that filled the air and the rustle of oak leaves stirred by the light breeze, he felt his mind clear.
“I managed a shape change, once,” he thought to himself, and his memories of chasing the woodcutters in the form of a wolf grew clear and sharp in his mind. “Somehow on that day, my power interacted with my silver ring and the wolf skin, allowing me to change my form,” thought Elerian to himself. “I would like to try it again, but I need to use a spell instead of a skin to help me change. Where do I start then?” he wondered as he brought his spell book to his right hand. Opening his book to the last spell Tullius had given him, he read it over carefully. From talking to Tullius, he knew that each spell in his book had at one time or another been discovered through trial and error by different mages and then written down to be passed on to other mages. “Somehow, I must complete this spell so that it will allow me perform a true shape change?” he thought to himself. It was a daunting task for someone just ending his apprenticeship. Elerian found that he had no idea how to begin.
With a sigh, he sent his book away. A brief gleam, seen out of the corner of his left eye, suddenly drew his glance to a clump of ferns not far from the base of the tree in which he was sitting. Elerian sat motionless, studying the ferns intently, until he finally spied the source of the gleam. It came from a fierce yellow eye that was just barely visible through the feathery green leaves of the ferns.
His curiosity aroused, Elerian quickly climbed down from his branch and approached the cluster of ferns on light feet. As he drew near to it, a thin, high-pitched cry suddenly shattered the still air beneath the trees, and a large gray and black hawk, one of many that lived in the forest, sprang from the ferns, menacing Elerian with its powerful, hooked beak and taloned feet. Elerian easily avoided its rush, for though its right wing was spread and held high, its left wing dragged uselessly across the ground. Elerian surmised that the hawk had broken its wing in the pursuit of its prey through the trees. Left to its own devices, it would slowly starve to death.
As Elerian looked into the bird’s furious yellow eyes, admiring its fearless spirit, he decided to heal its wing.
“Calm yourself, my friend. I will not hurt you,” said Elerian soothingly as he avoided another valiant rush from the injured raptor. The hawk continued to glare at Elerian as he raised his right hand and said, “Quiesco,” in a soft voice. With his third eye, Elerian saw a small golden orb of light flash from his right hand and envelope the hawk in a golden glow. The sleep spell took effect immediately, and the hawk went limp, collapsing onto the ground. Elerian picked it up and gently smoothed its soft black barred gray feathers. His clever fingers probed its damaged wing and found that the long bone between the elbow joint and the shoulder joint was broken cleanly in two. Carefully, Elerian fitted the ends of the broken wing bones together before casting a healing spell over the hawk. Pale, golden light flowed from his fingertips, covering the broken wing. At once, the healing spell began to knit the broken wing bones together.
A magical link now existed between Elerian and the hawk. Questing idly with his mind while he waited for the spell to do its work, Elerian found that for the first time in all his healing experiences, he was able to send a part of his shade through this magical avenue into the body of the hawk. “Have I gained some new power through age or training?” he wondered to himself as he watched with his third eye as his golden shade mingled with that of the raptor. Excitement surged through Elerian as he realized that here were the missing elements he needed to complete his shape changing spell. Carefully, he began to memorize every aspect of the hawk’s shape and inner being for the magical charm he would construct later.
Once he had gained all the knowledge he needed and the wing bones were knit together again, Elerian gripped the hawk firmly with both hands around its wings and body before withdrawing his shade and releasing the raptor from the sleep spell. The bird woke instantly, and Elerian flung it high into the air before it could tear at him with its powerful beak. Propelled by its powerful wings, it shot like an arrow through the branches overhead, its high, fierce cry piercing the air like a spear as it disappeared behind the green crowns of the trees.
After releasing the hawk, Elerian spent days working and reworking Tullius’s spell, removing every reference to water or wine and incorporating instead the elements which would allow him to become a hawk. When he felt that it was complete, he recorded it into his spell book. Elerian had no lack of courage, but he thought long and hard about whether he should try his new spell. He knew the dangers of his craft all too well now.
“Do I possess enough power?” he wondered. “If I cannot carry the spell to its conclusion, it might kill or maim me. Even success will carry its own dangers, for then there is the threat of being overcome by the new shape to contend with,” thought Elerian uneasily to himself, as he recalled how the Ondredon had changed from men to trees, conquered by the new form they had assumed. A wry smile suddenly crossed Elerian’s lips. “Tullius would be proud of me,” he thought to himself. “It seems I have finally developed some of the caution he harped upon for so long.”
For a time, caution won out, but gradually the lure of performing a shape change was too much for Elerian to resist. One bright afternoon, he finally set his doubts aside and decided to hazard his luck. “I can either progress in my art,” he thought to himself grimly, “or remain a simple country mage for the rest of my life. Besides,” he reassured himself, “my ring will help me as it did before.”
Alone, he traveled midway down the slope below Balbus’s farm to a small clearing in the forest. Here, in this remote meadow, he was sure to be safe from prying eyes. Elerian had already committed his new spell to memory. After he had made certain there was no one about, he immediately began the spell without giving himself time to think about the consequences. As he recited line after line of the charm, he also called on the power of his silver ring. Hid third eye opened, and he watched with a mixture of excitement and apprehension as a flow of golden light spilled from the ring, covering his body. Elerian felt a strange sensation as if his body had suddenly turned to water and was flowing into a new shape. His view of his surroundings suddenly blurred and then cleared again, with everything coming into sharper focus. He could now see even the minute veins on the backs of the leaves at the top of the green canopy far over his head.
Elerian looked down at himself and felt a moment of triumph, as he realized that he was standing on three toed, clawed feet and that in place of arms, he now had feathered wings. Eagerly, he shook free of his clothes which were mounded around him. His ring fell
away too, but in his excitement, he failed to notice. Tensing his legs, he sprang into the air as he had seen the wild hawks do. Beating his powerful wings, he rose slowly and a little awkwardly above the meadow and the crowns of the trees around it, gaining more and more height until the forest spread out like a green carpet far below him. The wind whistled through his wing feathers as he dipped and soared, slowly gaining mastery over the intricacies of flight. As his control over his wings improved, he felt a sense of limitless freedom fill his mind. He could streak through the sky wherever he wished to go now, instead of plodding slowly over the surface of the earth below. Tullius’s warning about the dangers of shape changing and his own dangerous experience with the wolf skin both faded from his mind, swept away by the exhilaration of flight.
When an unexpected desire to hunt suddenly swept over him, Elerian was totally unprepared. He was shocked to find that a second consciousness, primitive and fierce, shared his new body, a consciousness that had desires and instincts which did not align with his own.
The element of surprise and the unexpected ferocity of his opponent worked against Elerian. In the bitter struggle that followed, he was overwhelmed almost before he could mount a defense, and with a growing sense of panic, he felt his control over his new body slipping away from him as the fierce hawk mind crushed his resistance without pity or any thoughts of failure. Dimly, for thinking was becoming more difficult by the moment, Elerian realized that he was being overcome, doomed to spend the rest of his life as a prisoner of the hawk mind which now commanded his newly transformed body.
A last desperate plan formed in Elerian’s fading mind. He ceased all resistance, and thinking it had won, his savage opponent suddenly rent the air with its wild, piercing cry. In that instant, Elerian rallied his flagging forces and waged a last furious struggle for control. In that last desperate contest, neither of the contesting minds was able to spare a thought for the body they both occupied. With no will to direct them, Elerian’s wings ceased to beat, and he suddenly felt himself spinning out of control, before dropping rapidly toward the ground far below.
Only a few moments of life remained, but Elerian stubbornly fought on, determined to emerge the victor or die in the attempt, rather than cede control of his mind to his savage opponent. At the last moment, the uncontrolled fall to earth panicked the hawk mind, giving Elerian the opportunity he needed. As fear momentarily paralyzed the untamed intellect that had opposed him, he seized control again, spreading his wings and gliding in a spiraling descent to a landing in the same clearing where he had first taken to the air. Hastily, before his adversary could resume the struggle for mastery, he transformed himself back to his human shape again.
Once he was safe in his own form again, Elerian took stock of himself and his situation. He found that he was shaking from the struggle he had endured, but he appeared to be all in one piece. The knowledge that he had come very close to losing himself forever was not something that he would forget any time soon, however. “I should have taken Tullius’s warning more seriously,” he rebuked himself. “I might easily have become a prisoner in my own body for the rest of my life.”
When he had recovered somewhat, Elerian dressed himself. He recovered his belt knife from where it lay on the grass but had a moment of panic when he realized that his silver ring had vanished. After thinking for a moment on how he might recover it, he cast a finding spell on a small branch. Holding the branch in his right hand, he pictured his ring in his mind, and the limb gently pulled his hand to where his ring lay concealed in the thick grass of the meadow not far from his clothes. As he slipped the silver circlet back on his finger, a sudden thought occurred to him. “I used the ring to change my form to that of a hawk, but I was able to return to my human form without it,” he thought excitedly to himself. “I wonder if my power has grown to the point where I no longer need the ring.”
Elerian did not tell either Balbus or Tullius about his near disastrous shape change, for he knew that both of them would strongly disapprove of the risk he had taken, and there was little he could say in his own defense. Luck not skill had helped him survive the experience. Elerian was wise enough to know that he could not depend on being so fortunate a second time, and he firmly resolved to put all thoughts of shape changing out of his mind.
For a time, he held to his resolve, but eventually, the desire to transform again returned stronger than before. Elerian began to wonder why shape shifting held such an attraction for him, even now that he knew firsthand the danger involved. At night, when he tried to rest, thoughts of soaring freely through the air filled his mind, and in the end, he gave in. “I will try another trial,” he thought to himself, “but not until I solve the problems I encountered in my first attempt.”
The thought of losing his identity was his chief concern. “Tullius said that a shape changer must have an iron will,” he thought to himself. The night the venetor had attempted to overcome Balbus, long forgotten, suddenly emerged clearly in his mind. With a clarity that surprised him, Elerian suddenly remembered how he had instinctively used his power to form a barrier against the will of that murderous creature, protecting both Balbus and himself. He began to practice forming such a barrier again until it came easily to him.
With the problem of protecting his identity solved, Elerian turned his thoughts to his clothes and personnel effects. “I cannot afford to lose my clothes and possessions each time I change,” he thought to himself. “It would be most awkward if someone caught me returning to the farm clad only in my bare skin.”
He turned to a familiar spell to solve this second problem. Although he needed to expend more of his power than he was used to with his spell book, Elerian found that same spell which sent away his book would also send away his clothes and ring until he needed them again. He lacked the power to send away his knife, however, revealing a serious drawback to changing his shape. “I will have to take precautions with my weapons,” thought Elerian to himself, “or risk leaving myself unarmed.”
With all his preparations made, tense with apprehension but unable to resist the thought of mastering a more powerful magic, Elerian returned to the same clearing he had used for his near disastrous first attempt at shape shifting. After hiding his knife, he cast his spell, sending away his clothes and ring at the same instant that he transformed into a hawk again, this time without the aid of his ring.
Once his change was complete, Elerian took to the air easily, for the lessons of flight learned during his last transformation returned to guide him. Climbing effortlessly until he was almost a half mile above the forest floor, Elerian was relieved to find that there was no struggle for control this time. The barrier he had erected at the moment of his change kept the hawk mind which also occupied his body at bay. He was aware of it and its fierce, implacable nature, but it could no longer overwhelm his consciousness and take control of their shared body, at least not in a short period of time. Over a long interval, that consciousness might still be able to breach the barrier he had erected against it, but bearing in mind the lesson of the Ondredon, Elerian had no intention of remaining in his new form for an extended period of time.
With his problems solved, Elerian changed as often as he liked into a hawk, and in the days which followed, spied out the country in all directions. North, east, and west, the land proved to be a wilderness, unmarked by any works or sign of men. South of the Galerius, Elerian flew over a pleasant land of rich farms and small towns, but it had little attraction for him. Like Balbus, it was the wild places of the world which had captured his heart.
His success with the hawk shape encouraged Elerian to consider other forms he might assume. Having changed into a wolf twice in the past, he tried that form again, but found it less than satisfying. The sleek green-eyed leopards which roamed the forest attracted his interest next, and after much effort, he was finally able to approach close enough to put one to sleep with a spell. After extending his shade into the leopard’s body, Elerian explored it carefully
until he had gathered all the information that he needed. He then spent days crafting his new knowledge into another shape changing spell. When he judged it complete, he gathered up his courage and slipped out of Balbus’s farmhouse one moonless night. Deep in the forest, he used his new spell to transform himself. The form he took was not an exact replica of a leopard, however, for this time Elerian had made changes in the form he wanted to assume to suit himself. After the now familiar feeling that his body was flowing like water, he took on the appearance of a great cat twice the size of a leopard. Instead of being spotted, however, his short, silky fur was a solid gray, and his eyes were like great green gems that glowed with a light of their own in the dark.
Elerian found that he enjoyed being a cat more than he did being a wolf. His powers of scent were not as good, but his night sight and hearing remained acute, allowing him to move about in the darkness, aware of all that went on around him. Best of all, when he tired of gliding about under the trees on silent paws, he was able to take to the upper pathways of the forest, padding high above the ground over the thick tree limbs that made up the forest canopy and observing, unseen, all that went on below him.
ONE SPELL LEADS TO ANOTHER
Despite his pride in mastering a new form of magic, Elerian never told Tullius about what he had accomplished. He was no longer concerned about Tullius’s disapproval, but he did not want to chance hurting the old mage’s pride by demonstrating how much his own powers had grown. He continued to shift his shape in secret, and with time, his transformations became second nature to him. He never felt the need to use his silver ring again, and it became little more than an interesting keepsake of a past adventure.
The charm which allowed him to change his shape continued to fascinate Elerian. “If I can change myself into something else,” he thought to himself one day, “then I should be able to transform other things too.” He revisited Tullius’s wine spell and, by applying his new knowledge, found that he could now make an excellent wine from water. He presented a bottle to Tullius as a gift and was pleased when the old mage complimented him on its excellence.